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Clean energy special: Going underground

By Emma Young

THE decaying industrial landscape of Silesia in southern Poland doesn’t look the sort of place to give birth to a planet-saving technology. Yet here among the flyblown coalfields and mouldering, Communist-era factories is a project that many climate researchers believe represents humanity’s best bet for averting a global disaster.

Deep below the surface, in a coal seam about a kilometre down, 1000 tonnes of carbon dioxide are being held under lock and key. Australian researchers pumped it down there last year in the hope that it would remain held inside the coal instead of wafting around in the atmosphere. The verdict&colon; so far so good.

Of course, 1000 tonnes is a mere drop in the ocean of CO2 spewed into the atmosphere every day by factories, aeroplanes, cars and power stations. Global emissions of this greenhouse gas are about 23 billion tonnes a year and rising. But many researchers believe that projects like the one in Silesia can be replicated all over the world, with huge positive implications for the global environment.

John Topper, director of the International Energy Agency’s Clean Coal Centre in London, says that if we are serious about stabilising CO2 levels in the atmosphere we have just two options. The first is to build lots of new nuclear power plants. The second is to develop technologies similar the one being trialled in Silesia, collectively known as carbon capture and storage (CCS). And he reckons he knows which one is in pole position. “Nuclear energy is an emotive issue in many countries,” he says. “So the carbon capture and storage option …